Various operations are becoming increasingly dependent on intelligent systems to guide the planning and execution of critical mission tasks. Planning missions by hand, or by large, ground-based computer systems is rapidly becoming obsolete in a world in which rapid access to information is almost as important as physical capability. One of the critical planning tasks involves the real-time route and sensor planning for a variety of mission scenarios. The missions may be military or civil and take place on land, sea or in the air. Developing algorithms and architectures to solve these problems is a rapidly growing area of interest. Once a large enough portion of an area has been scanned by a sensor equipped entity, other entities may enter the area and perform their various functions.
One of the main components of such planning operations involves the development of accurate and efficient route and sensor planning algorithms. Such planning operations include, but are certainly not limited to, reconnaissance and surveillance operations. These planning operations are needed for a variety of platforms including air, naval, ground, and various tactical combinations of all three.
Finding solutions to these planning problems is very difficult and can determine the difference between success and failure of the mission. It is unlikely that there will be expedient solutions for this class of problems. Thus, heuristic approaches are used to generate efficient solutions in real-time that are as good or better than a human could generate. Only limited research has been conducted for solving these types of problems.